Meet Your New Italian Family for The Italian Cooking Vacation of a Lifetime

Our guests are guests, not clients. They discover the true Italy that so few fully experience. They live the passion for Italian country cooking and wine that is at the heart of life in Tuscany, Umbria, The Amalfi Coast, Bologna and Sicily, Italy.

Our small group All-Inclusive Italian Cooking, Wine & Cultural Vacations offer the magical experience of Italian culture like no other vacation. They are personal and intimate, with group sizes that never exceed 18 people so we all become close friends. We live among the locals, shop with the villagers, explore like the Italians, and experience a truly real Italian experience that other tourists completely miss out on. Our vacations are about living the Italian life... while others come to Italy to see the sights, our guests live the lifestyle of those sights.

Each Italian cooking vacation is a once in a lifetime experience with a wonderful balance of cooking classes, culinary and wine excursions, sightseeing, and unique cultural experiences.

Unlike most other Italian cooking tours, ours are all inclusive. When you are with us, you become part of our family... visiting friends. After all, no good host would ever ask visiting friends and family to pick up a tab, so we will never ask you for money once you are with us. We will never sell you anything, nor offer additional options. Everything is included in the base price, period.

What we mean by everything will shock you. We always have something going on, and it is always included in the price. If we are not cooking, we are out on sightseeing excursions, Tuscany winery tours, Umbria olive oil mills, Sicilian fishing excursions, etc. All with a balance between off the beaten path hidden treasures, and
more popular destinations. We include all cooking classes, excursions, food & wine, transportation, transfers... everything from the moment we meet until the moment we hug our goodbyes. There is nothing else quite like it, because the main ingredients in everything we do are fun, friends, and family. So come and recharge with us as you make some of the most enduring and fantastic memories of your lifetime.

Fun, Family, Friends, Laughter

The most important thing of all... No four words better describe what a cooking vacation in Italy with us is all about. We are constantly laughing together & having nothing but fun. Our groups are small, causing everyone to become friends right away, and by the time you leave, you will have become extended family... not just with us, but with the other guests.

Don't Just Take Our Word For It...

A lot of this can just sound like marketing hype. We get it, but we really are the real deal. We truly operate like a big family and bring you right in, as though we have known you for years. Have a look at all of our reviews on TripAdvisor, Google, Yelp, and scans of actual letters guests have written us. Over 1,000 written testimonials, and more than 240 unbiased reviews on review websites with an average of 5 out of
5 (★★★★★) ratings. In fact, on TripAdvisor alone, we are one of the highest rated companies in Italy, and one of a very select few in their "Hall of Fame", having consistently achieved their certificate of excellence for five years in a row. Better yet, if you are on Facebook, join our fan page and talk with us, plus thousands of our past guests!

We offer six base locations in Italy to choose from. Each of these is all about the unique culture and cuisine of the area.

Tuscany & Umbria

Three of our locations are in central Italy, based in, or bringing our guests to Tuscany, Umbria and Lazio. Each offers a a mixture of Cooking, Unique Experiences, and excursions to wonderful destinations. All are 8 day, 7 night all-inclusive vacations. The Soriano and Norcia weeks begin and end at the Rome airport. The Chianti week begins and ends at the Florence airport. Click on the itinerary names for more information about any of them.

Sicily

The Amalfi Coast

Northern Italy

Exclusive Festival Weeks

At many of our locations, when there is a special event or local festival, we just cannot help but take part in it! In doing so, our standard itinerary is revised to accommodate the event. Following are special events regularly on our calendar:

September:Wine Harvest

On all of our itineraries in Soriano and Chianti, Tuscany during mid September, we may have an opportunity to harvest grapes at a local vineyard. If this is possible, we will take one of the lesser destinations off of the itinerary so that we can harvest during the week.

October:Wine Harvest

On all of our itineraries in Soriano and Chianti Tuscany, during early October, we may have an opportunity to harvest grapes at a local vineyard. If this is possible, we will take one of the lesser destinations off of the itinerary so that we can harvest during the week.

On the first or second week of November, we modify our Soriano and Norcia itineraries in order to spend a day harvesting olives and making our own olive oil at a Cold Press Olive Oil mill.

The Locations
Each of our locations is chosen and developed to give our guests that most authentic experience possible. For example, on our Amalfi Coast weeks, we chose to base ourselves out of the town of Minori. We could have easily chosen a place like Positano, and that would have made our week easier to sell, since it is a headliner name. But there is almost no authenticity left in Positano because of the masses of tourists there. Instead, we chose a base location where real people still live and shop so that our guests can get a real feeling of life here and what makes it so special. This is true of each and every one of our locations.

The Accommodations
As you look at each of our locations, you will find the accommodations to be very unique. Private village homes in Soriano, small boutique hotels, and even private villas in some locations. We choose our accommodations very carefully, because it is important that our guests get a real sense of "home" during their week with us. The sense of family we pride ourselves on would get lost in big and anonymous hotels.

The Cooking
The cooking classes in each of our locations is always based on the regional cuisine of hat location, and some locations are more about home cooking taught by a local "home cook", and some are more upscale, taught by Michelin-starred chefs. But in all cases, our classes are 100% hands-on, full participation. We don't do the "sit and watch a chef cook" thing. We roil up our sleeves and cook the meal we will be eating that day. Our classes are also structured more like cooking events than "academic" classes. They are like a group of friends getting together to cook, with one person being the expert of the group.

The Cultural Experiences
One of our main goals is to get our guests into the lifestyle as much as possible in each location. We believe in doing, rather than just seeing. So we make cheese with shepherds at some locations, we get insider's wine experience at wineries, and even harvest and make wine when it is harvest time. When olives are being harvested, we not only harvest olives, but make our own olive oil. We participate in local festivals as locals, and learn artisan crafts with the artisans themselves.

The Excursions & Culinary OutingsAs you look at all of our itineraries, you will see that we always have a mixture of "headliners", as well as places you have never heard of. This is because th traditional tourist guides only mention the well-known places, but Italy is full of hidden treasures. We balance the known and the off the beaten path on our trips so you not only see what you have always wanted to see, but you also discover what you didn't know you didn't know.

Our excursions are also very different than other tour companies. We are all about that sense of friends and family, so we do our excursions like a group of friends... as it would be if you were visiting a friend abroad. So we don't do classic "follow the umbrella" history tours, but rather take a stroll together while we stop and smell the roses.

Truly All-Inclusive PricingAll of our cooking and wine vacations are truly all-inclusive in nature. From the moment we meet, all meals, transportation, tours, all expenses... everything is on us. The only thing you will pay for is airfare, personal expenses and any gifts you may wish to bring home. There are no surprises, and no hidden costs.